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The Spin Doctor

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Everything posted by The Spin Doctor

  1. Looks like some fun riding around there Taking a slightly simpler route isn't a bad idea - I used to avoid one particular right turn, not because it was particularly awkward but because it meant slowing on a fast bend where drivers behind couldn't see the junction and failed to react to brake light / indicator... after a couple of slightly scary moments I rode a few hundred yards up the road and took the next right.
  2. Good video tho I couldn't cope with more than few seconds worth of the awful 60s lift music The technique being demonstrated is called 'counter-weighting' because you move your body weight one way whilst leaning the bike the other. As the vid demonstrates, the more you lean the bike over, the tighter it turns. The big plus is that it means you can keep up a decent speed - which is what gives the bike balance - and still get it turned in a tight space. The mistake that most riders make is to try to go slower to turn tighter. Eventually the machine no longer has any dynamic balance and starts to wander all over the place - turns get wider rather than tighter, so the answer is not to go too slow. I noticed a couple of comments about 'cutting the drive' on the clutch. Don't do that - keep the power steady right through the turn from beginning to end and use the REAR BRAKE to fine-tune speed. One thing that the off-road U turn on test no longer teaches people is how to deal with a steep camber on a road - you have to drive UP the hill, then use the rear brake to control the speed going DOWN again once you have crossed the centre line. You'll notice that he's also turning his shoulders into the turn. This does a couple of other things. First - it helps you look where you want to go because even if you look 'straight', if your shoulders have shifted into the turn so has your head Second, it gives you a much straighter arm to the controls, which makes them easier to use. If you sit straight on the bike, you'll find one hand or other is tucked up in your gut... if you are turning tight to the left, like in the video, it'll be your clutch hand, and if you are turning right then it's the throttle. Meanwhile the reach out to the opposite control gets longer. Shift your body and you'll find the reach to the respective controls becomes a LOT easier and a much more natural angle.
  3. They have a radio. They simply tell you to pull over if they have to. And even if they lose you, it's 'test abandoned' which means a fee refund. It's not a test fail. I suspect a misunderstanding of the debrief at the end of the test.
  4. If you're happy to stick to an auto then just enjoy the training and listen to your trainer - he or she will know all the quirks of the machine and how to deal with them. If you're used to an auto already the Integra is nothing to be afraid of. For sure, it'll be quicker and heavier, but the big plus of the NC platform (which the Integra is derived from) is that the weight's carried really low - they're easy to handle.
  5. Safety - or more accurately, risk management because there's no such thing as safety on a motorcycle - is a tough one. My take on it is that we make the best decisions when we have a good grasp of the risk and the potential consequences. For example, we should all know about the potential for SMIDSY type collisions where cars turn into our path. But what's rarely given airtime is that whilst the risk of collision with an oncoming car turning right across us is a much lower than the emerging car from our left (it's the most common collision in built-up areas between a bike and a car), what's not so well recognised is that the crash with the oncoming car turning right is far more likely to kill the rider. It was only when I did a BikeSafe in 2001 or thereabouts that this crash got a mention and I twigged to the risks. The same goes for speed. Most fatals in urban areas where there's a collision at a junction involve riders exceeding the speed limit (I hate to say it but it happens to be true). Why? Probably because of a mix of basic physics (if you brake from 35 rather than 25, you'll still be doing about 20-25 when you hit the object you would just have stopped in front of from the lower speed) and drivers not realising the bike is travelling quicker than other traffic. But riders tend to think "it's only a little bit faster than everyone else, what harm can it do?". Nothing much... until things go wrong. How do we get the message over? Well, you don't ram it down our throats. I switch off as quickly as anyone when told "it's all for your own good". Give us the right information in a form that can be understood and I think many riders will make better decisions.
  6. Perhaps I phrased it badly... David Hough doesn't believe in encouraging motorcycling. Here's a bit of perspective to understand where he's coming from is the situation in the US where the primary force for rider training - such as it is - is the Motorcycle Safety Foundation, which is funded by the US motorcycle industry. There's clearly something of a conflict there - should the agency putting people on bikes be the same one that sells them the bike in the first place? California thinks not, and jumped ship to hand over the state-wide training franchise to Lee Parks and his Total Control school. I believe other states have followed. It's something that should concern us here in the UK actually as the Motorcycle Industry Association (MCIA) are busy taking control of basic training here in the UK via their own industry-led scheme, the Motorcycle Rider Training Association (MRTA).
  7. There is an argument that's happened with hi-vis... But the aim of a yellow headlight is not so much to jump out of the background at you, so much as to say "hey, this light here belongs to a bike". So it won't necessarily improve conspicuity, but could improve recognition once seen.
  8. I suspect that the person you are referring to is David Hough. The observation about experience and crashes ties in with UK data, although I think the peak comes a little earlier. I don't know if you have heard of the 'ladder of learning' = you start at unconscious incompetence - we don't know what we don't know, then move to conscious incompetence during training - we suddenly realise how much we don't know, then as we learn we become consciously competent - we have to think about everything we're doing and finally we reach the stage of unconscious competence - we now longer have to think to perform a task. Clutch control is a good example. The problem is that the ladder lives on a board with other ladders and snakes! When we get to the top of one ladder - unconscious competence - it turns out where actually at the bottom of another! So what happens after any training is basically people get enough confidence to use the skills and apply them without thinking but then push the envelope - maybe they ride faster or on a different kind of road, or even get a very different style of bike. Now they are back at the point of unconscious incompetence - they don't know what they don't know - again. I've had a few email chats with David Hough and he now thinks that the only way to get bike casualties in the US down is to discourage people from riding altogether. I'm not in full agreement with that and think there are other way to reduce crashes but so long as there are humans in control there will be mistakes on the road.
  9. That's where I saw you then on the Kent firebike course at brands hatch! A fantastic course that was.. Welcome to the forum Thanks for the welcome And yes, I deliver the 'roadcraft' session (I hate that term, everyone thinks it'll be boring lol). I call it the 'crash course' Glad you enjoyed the day. They're hard work and I'm out on my feet by the time I get home particularly if I've been out on track, but they are so worthwhile and fun to deliver
  10. Thanks for the follow - glad you're enjoying the FB Page Funny you should mention yellow headlights Guess what I have on my two work bikes? I actually fitted the headlamp cover to the first one because a rock took a chunk out the plastic lens and I thought I'd rather have a cover on it than have to replace the headlight, and they happened to have a clearance sale on yellow ones. Having stuck it on, a couple of trainees mentioned it was easy to spot when they were looking for me in the mirrors after we got separated in traffic. That was about 2010/11. And what should I find in the last few weeks but a couple of research papers examining if conventional dipped beam lights are being swamped the all the white day running lights being fitted to cars, trucks and buses. They suggesting yellow lights would stand out - one suggested permanently lit turn signals (as used in the US for many years), the other a yellow headlight. I never rely on a driver seeing me in mirrors - I nearly took out a CBR600 that was overtaking me years ago in my van but that's another story - but (warning - flippant, non-researched answer ) if you're getting blocked more it could just be that they're seeing you coming up more often and probably veering sideways whilst looking in the mirror trying to work out what it is
  11. I'm still digging out research on modulators. Aside from the tiny fact that they are illegal in the UK, what I have seen suggests that they are most likely to be effective at long range - there's a US paper from North Dakota IIRC which talks about enhancing detection range at 1000 ft (or 300-odd metres). The problem with that is pretty obvious - not many UK roads are that straight! And even if you are seen 300 metres away, so what? The crucial moment is when you're 20 or 30 metres away. My guess is that if they have a function it is on long straight roads of the sort you find in the US and Australia in terms of helping a driver about to overtake into the bike's path to spot it and back out. I'm not convinced they do much in urban areas in the UK. I'd say that there's also a risk of being taken for a cycle in the UK too.
  12. No worries! Nice to get a positive write-up Now, there's a great question. Guess what? I can't find that relatively simple answer! I have a reference somewhere (I'm madly cross referencing things for the SOBS website as we speak) which refers to the Motorcycle Accident In-Depth Study (MAIDS) carried out by ACEM last decade and if I remember right it was 69% of riders involved in collisions where using conspicuity aids - either / both hi-vis and Day Riding Lights DRLs. Unfortunately we don't know how many were using the aids and didn't crash so there's no comparison figure. There was a well-publicised BMJ article a few years back from New Zealand which claimed to show a positive effect but it was riddled with inconsistencies. What I can say is that there has been no obvious reduction in junction crash stats between 1975 and current, when riders first started using the aids, which is what you'd expect to see. I use to do that too... had an Early Learning Centre play mat, went round it visiting all the hazards... junctions, pedestrian crossings, busy town streets, rural roads, roundabout, traffic signals and so on. Got told off by the DSA (as was) for not running down the list of topics in the 'guidance to instructors'. Im must be very slow today I only just got the ‘spindoctor’ thing as well! Doh. it's been my forum user name since 2001 lol
  13. Thanks Well, they're back, when Mutch remembers to run them LOL
  14. Evening everybody, I'm Kevin Williams, the person behind Survival Skills and 'The Science Of Being Seen' or SOBS for short. I got a tip-off today that a post about Survival Skills had gone up here, so popped in to look, as you do - and I can only say a very big thanks to everyone who's commented positively on Survival Skills, the riding tips on the site itself and on FB, my books and my work with Biker Down. I was particularly interested in this statement: "The fat DVSA book you have to read to pass the theory test goes into motion camouflage/looming and how to break its effects which I thought was very forward thinking of them, simply written and easy to follow." I have to admit I have a shelf-full of DSA / DVSA books going back to the mid-90s and I usually buy one, read it, then wonder where it's changed since the last edition... so I must admit I haven't got the very latest and I was very interested to hear that information has now made its way into the book. It ties in with my experience on the Met Police BikeSafe course earlier this year - they also mentioned these effects. Unfortunately, I wasn't consulted lol. I've only got an MSc so I guess I wasn't important enough Instead they went to a chap called Cris Burgess who's a professor (psychology I think) to validate the work. I spent years as a courier before becoming a bike trainer so have plenty of experience of the 'looked but failed to see' problems we face as bikers, and when I started CBT training in 95 I was a bit shocked to see that the advice barely got beyond "wear hi-vis and turn your lights on" - the same advice that was first handed out 20 years earlier. That just happened to coincide with the internet really starting to open up access to scientific research so I started looking personally into the problem. I have been writing about conspicuity issues, the problems with relying on DRLs and hi-vis, and the benefit of lateral motion pretty much since that time. By the early 2000s I was refining my ideas - there's a tip written about 2002 on my website to that effect, and I certainly mentioned the problem in my MAG column which ran from 2002 to 2014 (which I've just relaunched as it happens). When I got talking with James Sanderson from Kent Fire and Rescue Service about what we could put together for the third pro-active module for Biker Down, I went away and really started digging the background research out. And when I got invited to tour New Zealand on the Shiny Side Up tour earlier this year and delivers SOBS to the Kiwi riders, I decided to put the SOBS website together, and that's what I've been working on for the last 9 months. When Biker Down first started delivering SOBS in Kent, it was in 2011. As far as I know, it was the first safety programme anywhere that tackled the issues in a logical and comprehensive way. And it didn't go too well with some people who still thought that bibs and DRLs were the answer However, Biker Down is now run by over half the UK's FRSs and a good portion of those run a simplified version of SOBS. As we all want bikers to be safer, I'm very pleased that the DVSA have picked it up and run with it. Of course, a little credit to the fire services running Biker Down and yours truly would have been nice The BikeSafe instructor back in May seemed a little nonplussed when I mentioned I was the created of SOBS Anyway, sorry for the long post. Just thought the background might interest you. You can find the SOBS website at http://scienceofbeingseen.wordpress.com. It's still a 'work in progress', I've a few more pages to go up, and really must get a proper domain! Hopefully I'll find a bit of time to pop in again.
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